KSU researchers to join beef safety project

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Seventeen scientists from Kansas State University will be taking part in a national research effort to improve the safety of beef, with special emphasis on the public health risks of certain strains of E. coli bacteria.

Several universities and government agencies will be involved in the project. The investigators will be led by a veterinary scientist at the University of Nebraska, which received a five-year $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The researchers will focus on a type of E. coli commonly called STEC. Kansas State officials say the bacteria results in more than 250,000 infections nationwide each year, typically from eating contaminated food or having contact with fecal matter from infected cattle and other animals.